Breaking: TransCanada Keystone I Pipeline Shut Down Indefinitely Due to Safety Concerns

Following a string of oil spills, TransCanada’s Keystone I tar sands oil pipeline has been indefinitely shut down, and banned from restarting operations. Today, the Pipelines and Hazerdous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued a Corrective Action Order, which stops use of the pipeline until the regulator determines that safety problems have been corrected.

In the order, Jeffrey Wiese, associate administrator for pipeline safety at the Department of Transportation, wrote:

I find that the continued operation of the pipeline without corrective measures would be hazardous to life, property and the environment. Additionally, after considering the circumstances surrounding the May 7 and May 29, 2011 failures, the proximity of the pipeline to populated areas, water bodies, public roadways and high consequence areas, the hazardous nature of the product the pipeline transports, the ongoing investigation to determine the cause of the failures, and the potential for the conditions causing the failures to be present elsewhere on the pipeline, I find that a failure to issue this Order expeditiously to require immediate corrective action would result in likely serious harm to life, property, and the environment.

The Keystone I pipeline has spilled 12 times since beginning operation less than one year ago. Late last year, TransCanada had to dig up portions of the pipeline when abnormalities were discovered.

Experts have raised concerns that tar sands oil pipelines pose serious safety risks due to the corrosive, acidic quality of tar sands oil, which is also pumped at higher temperatures and pressures than conventional oil.

This is a major blow for TransCanada, who is seeking approval from the State Department to construct the Keystone XL pipeline. The $13 billion Keystone XL pipeline would significantly increase the Canadian export of of dirty tar sands bitumen to the U.S. by as much as 510,000 barrels a day. This project would pump crude from Canada to refineries in Texas, crossing the Ogallala Aquifer, America’s largest aquifer and a source of drinking water for two million people.

As required by the Corrective Action Order, TransCanada submitted a restart plan which will be thoroughly reviewed by the US Department of Transportation PHMSA to ensure that TransCanada has satisfied all requirements needed to ensure safety of the line.

Comments

Interesting that in all of this concerted campaign to gin up some anti-prosperity hysteria, the paid hacks at James Hoggan & Associates Public Relations Inc. haven’t been able to cite one *actual* example of environmental damage.

All you’ve done to this point is make baseless allusions to HYPOTHETICAL environmental damage – but no REAL damage.

After the TransCanada pipeline leaked no less than _12_ times, and after the BP oil disaster killed no less than _11_ people, you’re still chanting the ‘shut up, let’s move on, we need money, we need money, we need money’ mantra? Are you crazy?

As Caring Progressive (oh what irony in that name) states, we should never shut down an installation until after it has caused a major environmental disaster, no matter how obvious the danger. It is not as if there is anything of importance other than $$$$$$.

How recently have you been to the sandhills or drank water from the Ogallala aquifer? Or do you prefer to import your water from somewhere else in those tiny plastic bottles. It’s time to think beyond $ and more long term. Off limits to the aquifer pipeline. Divert the pipeline around…or better yet, invest in other energy technologies, America. H20

I read an artical a while ago about a guy in Florida that has been buying kits and installing Hydrogen cells in cars?? Where and Why can’t big Corporations use this technology to drive a turbine and produce power????????DAAAAAA

HOUSTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation on Saturday approved TransCanada Corp.’s plan to restart its Keystone pipeline, which had been shut since a May 29 spill.

The approval comes one day after the department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration issued a Corrective Action Order, or COA, saying it would bar TransCanada from restarting the 591,000 barrel-a-day pipeline until it was assured the company had addressed the issues that had led to the pipeline’s leaking twice in one month.

Alberta’s dirty tar sands, are doing horrific eco damage. There are deformed fish in Athabasca Lake. There is now oil, heavy metal, mercury and cancer causing agents in, the mighty Athabasca River. The huge Athabasca watershed is now poisoned. A great number of wildlife depending on, Athabasca Lake and River, will perish. A nearby First Nations village, has a high cancer rate. Even the rare cancer caused by, exposure to petroleum. BC’s rain forests, are now in danger of the tar sands.

Pipeline bursts, contaminates the underground clean drinking water. They poison lakes, rivers, streams and land. Oil spills on oceans, kills all the marine life, in contact with the oil. Clean drinking water, will become more valuable than gold or oil. We can’t drink oil and we can’t eat gold nor, poisoned animals and fish. We can’t eat vegetables from contaminated soil. Oh well, i guess everyone who has a lot of money, can eat that. They can collect acid rain drops for water.

Man is the most stupid, and destructive animal on earth. Our oceans are dying. Our air is poisoned. Our lakes, rivers, streams and land are contaminated. Man is even polluting space with debris. Our weather gets more and more violent, every year worse, than the last year. However, greed is worth more than life.

No way other than a diseased imagination could pull that conclusion from the message. ATMOST it would be “you have given no evidence of your claims”, but you couldn’t reflect reality even that much, could you.

"Fossil-fuel companies have spent millions funding anti-global-warming think tanks, purposely creating a climate of doubt around the science. DeSmogBlog is the antidote to that obfuscation." ~ BRYAN WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE

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